LEGOmania

So, The Boy and I are deep in the grips of a serious LEGO addiction. Surprisingly for anyone who knows my background, I didn’t get that involved in LEGO as a kid. Seems like a perfect fit, but it just never happened. I guess I spent all my money on Star Wars figures. But, now that The Boy is old enough (more or less), I get to live out the LEGO life I didn’t as a kid.

The interwebs are a great place for finding LEGO info, LEGO toys themselves, and communities of people dedicated to making cool stuff with LEGO. My favorite LEGO-related blog is Brothers Brick. They’re plugged into all sorts of LEGO stuff, and they post a lot of the best new LEGO MOCs.

We’re starting with the recent (2007/2008) LEGO Castle series, often dubbed “Fantasy Castle” because it’s got dwarves, undead (skeletons, anyway), wizards (good and bad), and trolls/goblins/orcs as well as humans. There are hints Elves are coming soon, too. This, of course, ties into my lurve of the D&D as well. I like to build and The Boy likes to play with them, though there’s overlap in both directions, of course. I think I’ll use the minifigs as miniatures in my new D&D 4E game, too.

In any event, there will likely be images of LEGO we’ve made here or at my Flickr site (see above row of pics). It’s good clean fun for boys of all ages. Girls, too, probably, though our girl’s not so interested.

LEGO Fruit Snacks

Gabe at Penny Arcade has a great rant on the new LEGO fruit snacks. The Boy hasn’t come across them yet, but since he’s over five now and we’re getting heavily into the LEGO (more on that this weekend), I may try to find some for him this weekend.

Dungeons & Dragons: 4th time around

Because I’m fast approaching old fart status, I’ve been playing roleplaying games (off and on) for over 25 years. It’s difficult to describe how they’ve affected me growing up. Hell, I have a hard time even figuring it out myself. I DO know, however, that playing RPGs with a close-knit group of friends in junior high and school almost certainly kept me (mostly) away from drugs and other sorts of stupidity that are all most kids had to stave off boredom in small-town America in the 80s. I saw plenty of my other classmates (and a few who peeled off from our gaming group) get wrapped up in drugs (meth, anyone?) or alcohol or crime. Some never recovered. Some died because of those things. So I owe at least a small part of my life to nerdy stuff keeping me off the streets on Saturday nights. Thanks, Gary.

But, today is about good stuff, specifically: the release of Dungeons & Dragons, 4th edition. Thought I tend to play mostly Burning Wheel these days (especially for high octane gritty fantasy) I’m liking 4e so far, and I’m looking forward to playing it with my gaming group when we want to bring the big-action high-fantasy awesome.

New/Old Look for Bond, James Bond

New awesome covers for reissued Bond novels look amazing. [via Daring Fireball]

Ihnatko pegs Hillary Clinton’s campaign

Andy Ihnatko, despite his protestations, is the #1 most-beloved industry figure, at least in my book. I’ve been a big fan of his since his days adorning the back page of MacUser ca. 1992.

In a fairly serious and non-writing-about-technology turn, he completely nails what has happened to the Hillary Clinton campaign: she has become a vanity publisher. But pumping $6.4 million of her own money into her campaign, she has become the equivalent of a vanity publisher. There aren’t enough people in the world who are willing to support her book (campaign), so she’s using her own money to publish it (keep it going).

Seriously. If she can muster enough monetary support to keep the campaign going, it means that not enough people want her to be President. I believed it before I read Andy’s article, but I see even more clearly now just how pathetic she’s become.

Senator Clinton, please bow out gracefully now and help us ensure that Senator Obama becomes the next President of the United States. And Senator Obama: Senator Clinton would make a kick-ass Vice President.